03/17/2012

While federal policy focuses on serious offenders, data show hundreds flagged for deportation for minor infractions

Despite repeated statements from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that its main deportation targets are undocumented immigrants considered threats to the public or national security, more than 1,000 people have been flagged for deportation in Travis County in the past three years after arrests for minor infractions such as traffic tickets or public intoxication, an American-Statesman analysis has found.

Meanwhile, ICE data show that the Travis County Jail has become one of the busiest — and most efficient — deportation hubs in the country since federal immigration agents boosted their presence in the jail about four years ago and later began using a controversial program known as Secure Communities to check the immigration status of everyone booked into the jail.

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ICE says it has the money and manpower to deport about 400,000 people a year, so it has put the emphasis on serious felons, repeat offenders, gang members and other public threats, and instructed its employees last year to use more discretion in deciding who to flag for deportation.

And yet in Travis County, twice as many people have been deported after a misdemeanor arrest in recent years than have been deported after a felony arrest, according to an American-Statesman analysis of ICE and Travis County Jail data.

ICE data don't reveal how many people flagged for a minor offense in Travis County also fell under one of the agency's other priorities: recent border crossers and repeat immigration law violators, people who failed to appear at an immigration hearing and those who ignored a court order to leave the country. ICE records show that more than 500 people deported from Travis County since Secure Communities was launched here fell under one of those categories. It's unclear why they were jailed in the first place.

It's also unclear how many of those arrested for low-level misdemeanors might have had previous criminal records because jail booking records don't reveal that information.

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The newspaper analyzed ICE's data, then obtained three years' worth of records from the jail — totaling more than 250,000 bookings between 2009 and 2011 — and found that:

■ For every undocumented immigrant deported from Travis County after being arrested for a serious felony, two people were deported after being arrested for some type of misdemeanor, from traffic violations to more serious offenses, such as assault or drunk driving.

■ The more than 10,000 people who received ICE detainers — the first step toward possible deportation — over the three-year period included 1,054 people charged only with Class C misdemeanors, which are punishable by fines only.

■ Nearly 90 percent of those Class C charges were for public intoxication and traffic violations. It's not clear how many of those people were ultimately deported.

■ The number of detainers filed on people charged with Class C misdemeanors has been dropping over the past two years, from an average of 46 a month in the first half of 2010 to an average of 23 a month in the last half of 2011. Since ICE Director John Morton's memo last June instructing employees to use greater discretion, ICE agents have filed about 150 detainers on Class C offenders.

02/19/2012

Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia is leading an effort to block proposed budget cuts in the controversial 287(g) program that has helped local law enforcements authorities identify more than 275,000 undocumented immigrants in their custody.

President Obama, in his 2013 budget blueprint released Monday, requested a $17 million reduction – or 27 percent – for 287(g) operations by law enforcement agencies across the country.

The Department of Homeland Security, which administers the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, says it plans to discontinue “the least productive” 287(g) partnerships with local authorities in order to meet the funding cut.

In a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano argued that another immigration-status screening program, dubbed “Secure Communities,” can also meet the goals of 287(g), which is named for the 1990s immigration statute that created it. Napolitano said Secure Communities is more “consistent, efficient and cost-effective.”

But Garcia and Texas lawmakers led by Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin say Napolitano’s decision would be devastating to local law enforcement.

“Elimination of 287(g) would mean the failure to refer to ICE for possible removal many violent, dangerous, experienced criminals who had no previous contact with ICE before being charged with a state crime in Harris County,” Garcia said.

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Nearly 31,000 convicted criminals have been identified and deported under this program in Texas, according to data issued by the federal agency this month.

The three Texas agencies that participate in 287(g) are the Carrollton and Farmers Branch Police Departments near Dallas and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

Garcia’s office teamed with ICE in mid-2008 to run 287(g) at the county jail. Eighteen Harris County sheriff’s deputies have been trained by ICE agents on immigration law through this partnership.

The 287(g) program allows local deputies to question individuals – regardless of their crime – about their immigration status when they arrive at the jail. Deputies then can place holds, commonly known as detainers, on the inmates they deemed to be in the country illegally. Thus, when the suspected undocumented immigrants are released from jail, deputies can turn them over to ICE.

Initiated in 2008, Secure Communities is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program designed to identify immigrants in U.S. jails who are deportable under immigration law. ICE plans to implement Secure Communities in every state and local jail across the country by 2013. However, there are a wide range of ongoing concerns with the program that have not been answered to date. This paper describes the Secure Communities program, identifies concerns about the program’s design and implementation, and makes recommendations for the future of the program.

10/22/2011

Berkeley, California, October 19, 2011 – The majority of people arrested in a fast-growing federal immigration enforcement program are jailed without bond, without access to a lawyer, and without a court hearing, according to a new report. Secure Communities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Processfinds that the Secure Communities program has led to thousands of wrongful arrests of U.S. citizens, while tens of thousands of families are split apart. The report, released by the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law & Social Policy at UC Berkeley School of Law, is a first-ever in-depth analysis of Secure Communities data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Secure Communities relies on local law enforcement to target noncitizens for deportation. Fingerprints from individuals booked into local jails—many on minor infractions—are sent to the Department of Homeland Security for an immigration check, triggering arrests. This has transformed the enforcement landscape by allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to effectively run federal immigration checks on everyone booked into a local jail.

"The results are disturbing because they point to a system that is funneling people towards deportation without due process. Based on our findings, we recommend that the Department of Homeland Security suspend the program until the government addresses the issues we identify, particularly wrongful U.S. citizen arrests, potential racial profiling, and lack of discretion in detention," said Aarti Kohli, director of immigration policy at the Warren Institute and lead author of the report.

Lisa Chavez, Senior Research Associate at the Warren Institute and a co-author adds, "We had unprecedented access to federal data on ICE arrests, detentions, and deportations of people who are pulled in through Secure Communities. By following the numbers, we were able to construct a picture of who is being arrested and what happens to them after their immigration arrest."

10/19/2011

WASHINGTON, DC – Today’s announcement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of record high deportations in FY2011 illustrates even more the need for DHS to immediately implement its recent guidance on prosecutorial discretion, says the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

According to ICE, some 45% of the 396,906 individuals removed last year had committed only civil immigration offenses. The other 55% were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, but it appears that many of those misdemeanors were for minor violations, often created specifically to convert civil immigration violators into misdemeanor criminals.

A June 17, 2011, memo from ICE Secretary John Morton outlines for ICE agents and attorneys the factors that would deem an immigration case a low priority. They include good behavior, ties to America, schooling, economic contributions, and other equities for enforcement officials to consider when deciding what course of action to take in a particular case.

“The June memo recognizes that immigration law sometimes creates unjust consequences. For instance, a legal permanent resident who pleaded guilty after a bar fight fifteen years ago could be categorized as a criminal alien even though he’s been in the country for decades, pays taxes, and has a U.S. citizen spouse and citizen children. Even though he has a green card, the bar fight incident could render him deportable. But this is exactly the kind of person that ICE should be looking at more carefully to see if prosecutorial discretion is warranted,” explained Eleanor Pelta, AILA’s president.

“Unfortunately,” continued Pelta, “Morton’s June guidance is for the most part going unimplemented in the field. AILA lawyers from across the country are telling us that many ICE offices have done nothing to put the memo into action. Thus, deportations of people who should be left alone continue apace. Instead of spending money and time removing low-enforcement individuals from the country, ICE is supposed to be going after the really bad guys who could do us harm. With such high numbers of people being deported who pose no threat to public safety, ICE still has a long way to go,” Pelta said.

“The FY2011 data from ICE isn’t telling the whole story about the deported immigrants and it would be wrong to assume that they are living up to their enforcement priorities just because a new record was set,” Pelta concluded.

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The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced this week it deported more immigrants during the 2011 fiscal year than it did in any year since the agency's 2003 inception. The total includes more than 216,700 people convicted of felonies and misdemeanors.

ICE, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), removed about 397,000 people from the U.S. last fiscal year, up from 392,000 the year before, the previous high mark. The figures are in line with the Obama administration’s increased enforcement since 2009, which has resulted in more deportations and prosecutions in three years than President George W. Bush's administration accomplished in two terms.

... but U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, (R-San Antonio) doesn't think it is enough.

09/23/2011

Last week, a task force created to study DHS’ controversial “Secure Communities” initiative issued a report listing a series of recommendations to improve the program. Among other proposals, the task force recommended that federal authorities standardize the use of prosecutorial discretion around the country, make the program more transparent, and decline to initiate deportation proceedings against immigrants who have not been convicted of serious crimes or otherwise pose a threat to public safety. As of yesterday, those recommendations are one step closer actual implementation as the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) voted to approve the task force’s findings and submit them for further consideration to DHS leadership, including Secretary Janet Napolitano. While HSAC agreed (almost) unanimously to submit the recommendations to DHS, the committee was careful to characterize the findings as a good first step rather than a cure to problems with Secure Communities.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has warned that federal immigration enforcement priorities will be taken off track by individual state laws requiring police to check the immigration status of people on the streets. In briefs challenging Alabama's "show-me-your-papers" law, DOJ states that federal officers will be compelled "to address the work that Alabama will now create for it-verification of individuals who are caught driving without a license or jaywalking."

Bravo, one might say. However, another federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seems to have missed that message. On its own, without any state "papers" laws in effect, DHS is pushing tens of thousands of low-priority immigrants through its deportation machinery.

A report by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has found that frequent referrals from state and local police are causing federal immigration officials to deport many people who pose no threat to public safety or our national security. In one case, an elderly man was taken into police custody after the car his son was driving was pulled over for having a broken turn signal. The man committed no crime, but the police asked him for identification and then reported him to immigration officials - and though the man had no criminal history, DHS incarcerated and then sought to deport him.

Should federal agents be responding to calls in these kinds of cases? When federal agents deport harmless people in response to police requests, they are diverging from DHS's primary mission of keeping Americans safe. "[T]he federal government will be required to divert resources from its own, carefully considered enforcement … priorities-aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety," DOJ wrote in the Alabama case. Earlier this year, DOJ lawyers also challenged an Arizona law for compelling federal officers to verify the immigration status of "any and all suspected aliens without regard to dangerousness," and thereby leaving less time for federal agents to "provide timely responses … on serious criminal aliens."

By DHS's own statements, the agency's resources would be better spent pursuing individuals who pose a danger to our communities or our national security. John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within DHS, acknowledged that limited resources must be used to "promote the agency's highest enforcement priorities, namely national security, public safety, and border security." Why then are federal immigration agents pursuing thousands of undocumented people who should be low on the priority list?

Should the laws passed in Arizona and Alabama go into effect, they would distort federal enforcement even further. But DHS is already doing that. DHS needs to push the "reset button" to make sure it's not wasting finite resources going after people who pose no threat to our communities.